Mets statistical analyst has seen growth and evolution of sabermetrics in MLB

John Munson/The Star-LedgerMets GM Omar Minaya places stock in sabermetrics, and the analyses his statistician, Ben Baumer, conducts for him.Ben Baumer says his gig as the Mets statistical analyst was a direct result of the popularity of “Moneyball” early last decade. And in his seven seasons in that position, he has seen the sabermetrics movement expand and deepen.

Now, about 15 Major League Baseball teams have a person designated to do some kind of statistics crunching – including the Yankees, Red Sox and Cardinals, Baumer said – and they are looking for new statistical frontiers as well.

“Teams tend to be very guarded about what they’re actually doing with it and getting from it, because it’s trade secrets and stuff,” Baumer said Thursday at New Jersey City University, where he gave the keynote lecture for the school’s “Mathematics and Sports” program. “But certainly there have been a lot more teams who publically admit to using it.”

“The Red Sox this winter were up front about the fact that they were trying to improve their team defensively and they were using advanced metrics to do that,” he added. “Now again, we don’t know what they’re doing with it. But as far as I know, there’s still a lot more work that can be done.”

Between the explosion of “Moneyball,” Michael Lewis' 2003 book about the use of statistical analysis in the Oakland A's front office, and on-base percentage, and the development of Defense-Independent Pitching Statistics – pioneered by Voros McCracken, who has worked with the Red Sox – sabermetrics and its usage has had many phases.

Trying to get a handle on fielding analysis will be an important next step, though a more complicated one, since the events are not as neat as batter versus pitcher.

“In the case of baseball players, we know there is some combination of skill and some combination of luck,” Baumer said, “and the trick is to try to discern how much of each we’re getting.”

In his day-to-day, Baumer gets a daily stat file from the Mets. He goes to most of the home games, spring training and the winter meetings. Also a mathematics doctoral student at the CUNY Graduate Center, he splits his time between Citi Field and his graduate thesis – which involves combinatorics and graph theory, not baseball statistics.

Mets GM Omar Minaya poses ideas to him, often via e-mail, and Baumer will run the numbers to see if they’re true. He said he’s one of 8 or 10 people who can offer their two cents when a decision is being made, such as a trade or in free agency (though he doesn’t do much work with the draft).

But much of what he does concerns what’s going on with the team: Where is there a deficiency? Are they comfortable with the bullpen? Laptops aren’t allowed in the dugout, but coaches are given a fat binder before every series statistically breaking down the matchup with the opponent.

Baumer is careful to point out that the numbers he runs bring an independent viewpoint to the game, but they don’t imply causality (i.e., explaining the Mets’ struggles over the past year).

But that doesn't lessen the importance Minaya -- and former Mets GM Jim Duquette, who hired Baumer in 2004 – placed in this tool and the ways it can evolve in the future.

“They’re very different people and they come from very different backgrounds, but in both cases, they were always interested in what I have to say,” Baumer said. “If you have an independent observer saying the same thing, you feel much more comfortable about whether what they’re saying is true or not. Whereas if they’re saying different things, maybe you don’t know who’s right and who’s wrong -- but you know maybe there’s more going on.”